TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Gov. Rick Scott tells supporters to join him on Facebook Monday for a “big announcement.”
Florida’s chief executive is expected to tell his social media friends his plans for when he is term-limited out of a job this November. Scott is viewed by many, including President Donald Trump, as the Republicans' strongest candidate to deny U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson a fourth term.
National pundits say control of Congress is in play and rate the Florida Senate seat a toss-up — one of four— if Scott declares. Preference polls indicate the two are evenly matched and Morning Consult finds Scott has a higher approval rating than Nelson.
The former hospital executive moved into the governor’s mansion in 2011 while the state was mired in the depths of the Great Recession. He faced a $2 billion shortfall when he went to write his first budget. Unemployment was above 10 percent and one in every 20 homes were in foreclosure.
Last month, Scott signed the biggest budget in Florida's history. The $88.7 billion spending plan is 27 percent more than what he approved in his first year in office. Unemployment has dropped to a 10-year low — about a third of what it was eight years ago, and home sales were up 12 percent last year.
The budget proposal Scott sent lawmakers before the start of the 2018 session signaled to many he would be a candidate once again this November. A governor who had vetoed hundreds of millions of dollars throughout his two terms in office sought $4 billion in new spending on his way out.
Here’s the University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett’s reaction to a spending plan sprinkled with a little something for everyone when it was released last November.
“It is not consistent with what he had done,” said Jewett. “It looks like it is designed to help him run for the U.S. Senate.”
Scott credits the success of his push for $10 billion worth of tax cuts for a “complete economic turnaround.” The stronger economy, he explained, enables Florida to spend money on what it values.
“Today, Florida is strong and I am proud of our hard work over the past seven years to grow the economy, invest in education, protect the environment and keep our families safe,” Scott said when he signed the budget last month.
A Scott Life
When the 65-year old Scott talks about his upbringing, he describes a family that aspired to achieve working-class stability. Upon graduating from high school in Kansas City, Missouri, he joined the Navy and married his high school girlfriend. The couple then parlayed their savings into a donut shop. With that and college degrees earned with the GI Bill, Scott would eventually create the largest hospital company in America.
Scott was enticed with a $350 million stock offer in 1997 to resign as the CEO of Columbia/HCA as part of a settlement between the company and the federal government. An investigation uncovered evidence of fraud – the company paid $1.7 billion in fines and Scott relocated to Naples.
He became a venture capitalist and began acquiring companies in 1998.
Tea Party turbulence
The relatively unknown Scott rode a Tea-Party wave of frustration with politicians into the governor's mansion. Now as an established politician, he must navigate a potentially turbulent blue Democratic wave if he wants to go the U.S. Senate.
After Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, the left and right went to battle over Obamacare, the program to extend health insurance to most Americans.
Scott formed Conservatives for Patients’ Rights to lobby Democrats to enact health care legislation based on free-market principles. He contributed $5 million to the effort. A year later he decided to challenge then-Attorney General Bill McCollum, the establishment’s choice, for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.
Scott, who had never held public office, branded McCollum, a former congressman, as soft on immigration and then squeaked past former banker Alex Sink with a blue-collar message of “Let’s Get to Work.”
“Capital goes where capital is welcomed,” Scott said on the campaign trail, promising to make Florida the most business-friendly state in the union.
That message, along with more than $83 million of his own money worked in 2010 and again in 2014 when he defeated former Gov. Charlie Crist by a percentage point. But that was then, said political science professor Charles Zelden of Nova Southeastern University. Things are different now.
“Timing is kind of everything, isn’t it,” said Zelden. “Ironically we have the same kind of moment we had in 2010 with the Tea Party movement. The difference is this time there are more reasons for those leaning Democratic to come out and vote then there are Republicans to do it. He’s picking a bad time to run.”
His supporters though say Scott has a history of overcoming difficult challenges - from his humble beginnings through the federal investigation of Columbia/HCA, and two statewide elections, Scott beat the odds.
"Rick Scott is a fighter, a survivor and never has lost a race," said Evan Power, chair of the Leon County Republican Executive Committee. "He has done a tremendous job as governor. The economy's growing, all the numbers are up and his approval rating has risen dramatically."
Morning Consult found that 58 percent of respondents approved of Scott's performance in office. A Mason Dixon poll indicated 60 percent of respondents, including 59 percent of Democrats, said Florida's economy is on the right track.
Outsider to insider
Zelden observes Florida politics from Broward County, where the Parkland high school massacre occurred in February. He said many of his students are locals whose political consciousness had been awakened by the shooting.
“I am seeing a greater sense of cohesion in this age group – they feel they have power and clout,” said Zelden. “They may not be excited about a Democrat, but they have a reason to vote against those who supported the NRA, or underfunded the schools they just came out of.”
After eight years in office, Scott can no longer run as an outsider.
Jewett observed that Scott has some cover for guns. He did advocate for and signed the first gun restrictions approved by the Legislature in a generation, but they don’t go as far as the Parkland survivors wanted and he has a long history of support for NRA positions.
Scott pushed for more money for schools but when inflation is factored in, the per-pupil spending is less than what it was before the recession. And Democrats are still sending out news releases about how he cut the schools budget by a billion dollars his first year – most of it due to the end of the federal stimulus program to help states during the recession.
The issue of voting rights for felons could also come back to haunt Scott as he seeks to prolong his political career.
A federal judge has ordered Scott and the Cabinet to come up with a less arbitrary and quicker method to restore voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences. The repeal of Crist-era rules was among the first things Scott and the Cabinet did when they took office in January 2011.
A million felons without civil rights won’t cast a vote this November. But on the ballot is a constitutional amendment to restore their rights – making felons' rights a campaign issue, said Jewett.
“It brings out people who may think the system is unfair. Again, I don’t know if that is a decisive issue, but it is one that works against him in terms of votes,” said Jewett.
The last four top-of-the-ticket state-wide elections have been won by a point. Scott and Trump beat the average with 1.2-point wins in 2010 and 2016.
“And when you start adding them up and then look at the anti-Trump environment it suggests that Gov. Scott is in for a heck of a fight to try to knock off Nelson.”
The Republican Party of Florida never fully embraced Rick Scott. It rejected his hand-picked candidate to lead the state party. In 2017, Scott and the Speaker of the House fought over his economic development plan and traded insults through reporters and campaign-style videos.
Sen. Marco Rubio said he thinks Scott would do a good job if he were senator but GOP insiders tell reporters the two do not have a close relationship. Rubio is said to be nursing bruised feelings from attacks by Scott allies during 2016.
On a swing through Tallahassee, Rubio said he has a good working relationship with Nelson but wants his party to have as many members in the Senate as possible. The Senator acknowledged it is difficult for the party that holds the White House to pick up seats in a midterm.
“The question is can you outperform the president," said Rubio about the challenges facing Republican candidates in 2018. " I won by six points more than he (Trump) did but that was that election. We’ll find out about this election.”
